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Open Mic Spotlight: Zhang Hua

This post is part of the OpenStack Open Mic series to spotlight the people who have helped make OpenStack successful. Each week, a new contributor will step up to the mic and answer five questions about OpenStack, cloud, careers and what they do for fun.

Zhang Hua joined the OpenStack community in 2012 as a contributor from IBM. He loves coding and digging into the details of various computer technologies. You can follow him on Twitter at @zhhuabj and read his blog here.

1. Define what “open source” means to you.

I like the open source spirit. I love working in a culture where the engineers can decide how to design and implement great products. I also enjoy the opportunity to learn from world-class engineers.

2. How did you first get involved in OpenStack?

I joined the OpenStack community in February of 2012. I am the first contributor from IBM China’s Systems and Technology Lab, and was one of the early guys from IBM global. I love Linux technology, and my manager thought I would be an appropriate engineer to join OpenStack at that time. Looking back over the past two years, I feel very lucky to be nominated by IBM to join the Openstack journey. I read more than 24 books about networks and linux during this time, and became an expert. I also better understand the spirit of open source: top engineers develop the best platforms based on technology truths.

3. If you couldn’t be a developer, what would your dream job be?

If I couldn’t be a developer, I would become a researcher. I believe that disruptive theory is more important than practice in terms of technology improvement and society development. I would pursue investigation, prototyping and disruption to improve depth in some promising domains.

4. Why did you decide to go into computer engineering?

My undergraduate major is in Electronic Information Engineering. Although I didn’t understand computers well at that time, I was always envious of others who could set up their personal website using HTML technology — although now, it seems so simple. This sparked the interest that drove me to choose Computer Engineering for graduate school in 2004.

5. How did you learn to code ? Are you self-taught or did you learn in college? On-the-job?

I’ve always felt that I was a little different from most people. For example, I don’t like to read blogs or study word phrases, but instead adapt systematic studying by reading a lot of books. I don’t prefer e-books, but enjoy reading paperback books. I always begin to code after I have figured everything out systematically. I always know exactly what I’m doing when I code.